Oldsmobile Toronado

Oldsmobile Toronado - 264

page last updated: 25 August 2007

264

D I E - C A S T S C A L E M O D E L S

P L A Y C R A F T T O Y S L T D - L O N D O N

OLDSMOBILE TORONADO

It's a big, glamorous Yank Tank - innovative for the US having front wheel drive - but a grand gas-guzzler from over the pond never the less. It had the extravagant styling, lots of chrome and pop-up lights. The Toronado was actually very innovative and is perhaps a useful measure of how different the Americans really are. In the UK a few years before we had developed our own revolutionary front wheel drive car using an innovative sub-frame construction like the Oldsmobile has. We developed the Mini, they came up with this. Here are a few comparative stats.

	Mini	Olds
Length	10ft	17ft 7in
Width	4ft 7in	6ft 6in
Turning Circle	29ft	43ft
Weight	12 cwt	40 cwt
Engine size	848cc	7 litres
BHP	34	385

The Yanks build a performance two seater sports with a 7 second 0-60 time and it weighs two tons, a sports coupe with a turning circle like the Queen Mary. No wonder they liked the E-Type so much, even if it did break down all the time. Another interesting fact about this car is that it shared a lot of its underneaths with the Buick Riviera, also beloved of Corgi. I would also bet that the 34bhp Mini would out-run this 385bhp monster on twisty British roads.

This is a fair example shown on the left below. The lights pop up and the plastic is all there but the paint is a bit worn - still it remains a favourite. I still have the one I owned as a kid, it's bashed to hell, but it was a prized toy in my youth. It is displayed on the right below

CORGI TOYS

REMOTE CONTROLLED SWIVELLING

JEWELLED HEADLIGHTS

PLATED BUMPERS

& SIDE TRIM

SPRING SUSPENSION